


If I needed you

by Superstition_hockey



Series: Whatever You Love Best [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Abuse, Drunk dudes yelling, Enemies to lovers to friends to spouses to being in love, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hanks injury, Haywood Sr.'s stellar parenting, Protests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23414119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey
Summary: Five times Bells and Hayes had each others backs in college, and one time after they'd graduated
Series: Whatever You Love Best [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980923
Comments: 172
Kudos: 211





	1. Chapter 1

“That was a fucking disgrace,” his father hisses, face tight and red with rage. His voice is low but it feels like it echoes in the empty back corridor of the sports complex. “Pathetic. Your mother and I have never been so embarrassed.” 

Hayes settles his shoulders, lifts his jaw, and tries to slow the way his heart is thudding in his chest, fast and pounding, a red ringing in his ears. 

“If I see another--” 

“Hey, Number 8!” he hears Bucket shout from down the hall. He turns, as does his father. Bucket grins. “Coach is looking for you.” 

“Go,” his father spits, “Maybe he can do something to make you less of a pathetic waste of space on the field next game.” 

“Sir,” Hayes manages to get out, voice as smooth as he can make it. He walks away, doesn’t _run_ the way he wants to, heading in the direction of Coach’s office. 

The door to Coach’s office is open, but he’s not in it. Teixeira is sitting on the chair pushed up against the wall, legs criss-cross-applesauce, head buried in a book. She’s the absolute least person he wants to see right now. 

“Hey, Teixeira,” he says, “Where’s Coach?”

“With the doc in the trainer rooms, talking about Jace’s shoulder.” She still hasn’t looked up from her book. He watches her placidly highlight something. His heart still hasn’t slowed down, but the fuzzy ringing in his ears is fading a little. 

“Bucket said he was looking for me.” 

“He wasn’t.” 

Shame suddenly flushes over him. Mortifying, to be…. What? What is she trying to--? Just because they’ve fucked a handful of times and she’s, what, rescuing him? With her fucking bleeding heart nonsense. He sets his teeth, takes a steady breath. 

“Why?” he grits out, finally, not even bothering to pretend he doesn’t know it was her. 

She finally looks up at him. Her eyes are big, dark, framed by the thickest sooty lashes he’s ever seen, even behind her glasses. She folds her book and sets it in her lap and stares at him, clear and calm and cool. “Because this is my team, Haywood. Coach coaches and I manage it, and if someone wants to spout off on a sport they know nothing about and give bad advice to undermine the strategies that we’ve laid out, blundering in ignorance and wrecking the hard work of professionals who actually understand the sport, they can buy their own fucking rugby team and fuck that one up, but they’re not touching mine.”

Haywood swallows. 

Teixeira looks back down to her book, opens it up to a dog-eared page. “If you want to make yourself useful, Haywood, Brook’s communication fell way off in the last half of the second period. He wasn’t talking out there, too much in his head. You guys need to get that communication back online before our next game. He’s a little shook up. He’s cooling down on the bikes, go talk to him, see if he wants to get a beer with you after your showers.” 

There’s a flare of anger. Indignation. The fucking _gall_ of her. That’s not what a fucking team manager does, doesn’t she know she’s just supposed to count fucking water bottles or something. He takes a deep breath. “Yeah, well, my parents are in town, so…”

She turns a page. “How unfortunate for them that your coach has other necessary tasks for you to perform tonight. I’m sure they’ll understand that you’ll have to sacrifice their company in your duty to your team.”

“Right,” he says. Blinks. Hates the relief that sags through him. “Right. Sure. Fine. Later, Teixeira.” 

He’s turning to leave, when she looks up again. “Hey, Haywood?”

He stops, looks back at her. 

“Good job tonight. We were a mess, but you held your forwards together. That was a beauty of a try in the first period.” 

“Team manager’s not the same thing as GM, Teixeira,” he answers back, but he’s smiling a little when he says it.


	2. Chapter 2

"You stupid fucking bitch," Hayes hears Armistead shout from the kitchen, drunk and angry and making a fucking scene. “I know it was fucking you!” he shouts and Hayes wanders in from the backyard, pushing through a cluster of girls with solos cups standing on the stoop. 

“Calm down, Teddy,” he hears someone, Wes maybe, say. 

“No. I know it was fucking her! I know she did it, and she’s showing up here, to _my_ house? FUCK YOU, TEIXEIRA!” Hayes hears just as he steps into the kitchen. Armistead is red in the face, up in Teixeira’s face, hand gripping her upper arm. 

“I think,” Teixeira answers, “that this is technically the sail house, not yours. And get your fucking hand off me, before I break it.” 

There’s a commotion after that; he sees Wes tugging Armistead back, hears Armistead shouting, “She keyed my fucking Beamer last night, dude!” 

“I’m sure she didn’t,” Wes is saying when Hayes finally gets through the crowd to them. 

“I didn’t touch your stupid fucking car, Armistead,” Bells says. 

“Shut up, bitch, I know it was you. You’re all buddy-buddy with Catesby and that fucking crazy ass ho has been spreading all kinds of lies about me. Don’t you roll your fucking eyes at me, bitch. I’m gonna call the cops.”

“Sure, Armistead, call the cops because you scratched your daddy’s car. I’ll call my lawyer, you call yours.” 

“Oh, you think this is a game? You and your stupid fucking friends are going to jail. That car is worth 300k, Teixeira, it’s a fucking felony, good luck getting your fucking internship with that on your record. I’m gonna--” 

“Ted,” Hayes cuts him off, “she didn’t key your car.”

“Shut the fuck up, Haywood, I know she’s in with your rugby guys or whatever, but you don’t know this psycho bitch.”

“I know she didn’t key your car last night because she was with me.” 

Armistead shrugs out of Wes’s grasp and blinks drunkenly at him. “Well, maybe she snuck out after you nutted and fell asleep, Haywood, I don’t fucking know, but I know she did it.” 

“I didn’t fall asleep, because I didn’t go to bed. We were in the Rugby House study room, pulling an all nighter for our Ethics midterm.”

“Oh.” Armistead’s demeanor shifts, quick as any foul tempered drunk. He blinks at Teixeira. “Well, sorry not sorry, Teixeira, you’re still a fucking bitch.”

Teixeira takes a sip from her solo cup and smiles a shit-eating smile at him. “Non-apology non-accepted, Armistead, but thanks for the compliment.”

“Oh, fuck you, Teixeira, whatever. So who the fuck keyed my car?”

“I can’t be the only person that hates you,” Teixeira suggests cheerfully. 

“Or maybe,” Hayes says, firmly, hands on Teixeira’s shoulders, “you double parked in the back lot again, like an asshole, and some fucking rando got pissed at you. Which happens all the time.”

“Oh! Probably! I’ll have security pull the footage. Thanks, Haywood.” 

“Terrific. You do that. Teixeira, I’m going to Jace’s, you coming with?” It’s a question, but he doesn’t really phrase it like one, hands on her shoulders, herding her out of the kitchen.

“Oh, sure, I was headed there anyway.” 

“Please tell me,” he says, when they’re out of the house and walking down the street, no one within earshot, “that he was parked in that corner spot in the camera’s blind spot.” 

“Duh.” Teixeira smiles at him. “I waited four days until he’d finally parked there again.”

Hayes sighs. “Great. I’ll text Jace, let him know to tell the boys if anyone asks, you were at the House last night.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Professor Garber, I’m sorry I missed it, is there any way I can make it up?”

“Lawrence, you haven’t done any of the extra credit participation on online class discussions. You haven’t come to any of the study groups.” 

“The study groups are during a club meeting I can’t miss.” 

“I’m not prepared to make exceptions when--” She looks over his shoulder and her face shifts into a smile. “Bells! Just a minute.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Professor Garber!” Bells says in an unnaturally perky voice. Her hair’s piled up on top of her head in a messy bun with a pencil sticking out of it, and she’s wearing a gray sweater, pilling and fraying on the arms, that looks like it came out of some 80 year old man’s closet and went to Goodwill. “But, umm, actually I wanted to talk to Hayes really quick? Sorry!” She pushes her glasses up from where they were slipping down her nose. “Um, Hayes? I know tonight’s usually our tutoring time, but my IR club is having an officer’s meeting that’s probably going to go late, would it be okay if we met at 7:30 tonight instead of 7?” She bites her lip and smiles, first at him and then at Professor Garber. Somebody give her a fucking Oscar.   
Professor Garber gives him a second look. “I didn’t know you’d gotten Bells to tutor you, Lawrence.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, professor. She’s been really helping.” 

“That’s good. You won’t find any other student with a better understanding of the subject matter. Well, if you’re working with Bells... How about you get your draft to me by next Tuesday, Lawrence, is that do-able?”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, professor,” he says. 

“Of course. Bells, come by office some time, I have a book I want to show you.”

“Thanks, Professor Garber. Will do!” 

Hayes lingers while Bells stuffs her notebook in her bag and walks out with her.

"Do you want to meet at the library, or my apartment?" she asks. 

“Thanks for the assist, Teixeira. But I definitely don’t remember agreeing to tutoring with you.”

“Oh, don’t you? I must have mixed it up. I can tell Professor Garber I was confused.” 

Hayes sighs, wraps his arm around her shoulder. “You’re a manipulative little shit, Teixeira.” 

She leans her back against his arm and smiles at him, bright and sunny. “And you’re a privileged asshole who should take this class more seriously. 7:30, Haywood.” 

He snorts. Kisses the top of her head. “Fuck you so much, Teixeira.”


	4. Chapter 4

He gets in through the fire escape. Well, the fire escape and then some finangling over a ledge to a window she'd left open. The rock climbing classes are paying off, evidently. He flicks on the lights, walking through the apartment, and finds the laptop wedged between the sofa cushions. There's no knock on the door about a prowler climbing in a window, which is good, but also a little distressing for Bells's safety. 

He opens the app on his phone and stares at the 16 digit-long string of randomly generated letters and numbers that is Bells Teixeira's laptop password, and then dutifully types them in. He clicks around, finds the folder he's looking for (not hard, since her harddrive appears to be as obsessively organized as her closet: documents/school/HIST82F/researchpapers), opens the file he's looking for, and reads it. Snorts, pokes around some more until he finds her reference articles, reads those. Wanders into her bedroom, finds a promising looking notepad and then locates an outline. Looks like she's about two sections short.  
He takes the laptop to the bar separating her kitchen from the living room, because he hates typing while sitting on a couch not at a table, and helps himself to a yogurt cup out of the fridge.

He types about five sentences and then deletes them, sighs, and clicks around to her Spotify account until he finds "Study Mix 3" and puts it on. "If I were a communist French Canadian," he asks Bells's aloe plant, three feet away from him, "what would I think about the Yalta conference?" 

"I know," he says to it when it obviously doesn't answer, "democratic socialism isn't the same thing as communism, but it just doesn't sound as dramatic. It’s hyperbole." He sighs, and goes and looks in her fridge again, finds a disgusting looking green algae drink, cracks the lid open, and takes a sip. Ugh.  
He goes back to the laptop, squares his shoulders, rereads the first four pages to get her tone and diction clearer in his head, and starts typing. 

He finishes about an hour and a half later, checks his phone and sees it's only 10. Does some pushups on her living room floor, watches 15 minutes of ESPN highlights, and goes and rereads the final draft. It seems like it flows pretty well. He can't believe he wrote half that shit, but he's familiar enough with Bells's opinions on most subjects and could follow the logical path her argument was building towards with the rest of the paper to be pretty sure he nailed it. 

He checks it over one more time for spelling and punctuation, and double checks some of her previous paragraphs to make sure he and Bells dont have a lack of consistency with like… oxford commas or something, but he's pretty sure it's good.  
He attaches the thing to an email to the prof, and types out "Bonjour-hi, Professor Harris, here’s my paper. Sorry I missed class today, but I'm taking lots of Mucinex and I should be better soon. Thanks!!!" (he adds three exclamation marks because Bells is a three-exclamation-marks-thanks kinda girl), and hits send. 

He opens his phone and brings the North Dakota Sioux County Jail inmate messaging system up. Yes, he is aware charges apply. Yes, he still wants to send a text. He sends the text.  
_Done._

He gets a message back 10 minutes later. He's still on her couch, watching the last of the Tar Heels vs Cavaliers game. _Thanks!!! Did you water my plant?_

_This is $1.50 per text, Teixeira. Sure you don't want me just to bail you out?_

_Auntie Cinn is bailing us all out together. It's okay. Thanks Haywood I appreciate it, you'll take notes for me tomorrow in Russian?_

_Are you serious? I'm not even in that class_

_I have a quiz next week_

_You should have thought of that before you got arrested._

_The US goverment should have allegedly thought of that before they allegedly decided to fuck with Native Lands again and make me allegedly have to throw an alleged bottle filled with allegedly flammable liquids in an alleged altercation with an allegedly fascist oppressive police force, as per the allegations of a incorrect report, as I have no knowledge of any of those alleged events since they didn't happen and I was merely attending a peaceful protest._

Hayes takes a moment to bury his face in his hands and exhale in frustration. There is absolutely no chance in hell that Bells Teixeira did something to escalate violence and risk the safety of an at-risk community. There is also no chance she’d be dumb enough to talk about it, even with her coy little allegedlies on a monitored inmate communication app. And a zero percent chance she’d let herself get arrested if she didn’t _mean to_. If she’s in jail it’s because she figured she had more money and better lawyers than whoever really did throw the fucking thing. 

_The shit you say, Teixeira_ , he replies instead of expressing any of that, _I'm gonna go water your damn plant, but I’m not doing your fucking womens studies group discussion homework for you, Teixeira_

_No worries. Harris is the only one who doesn't forgive absences for protests. Thanks, Haywood, you’re a bro!_

_Yeah, yeah, message me if you need me to buy you ramen_


	5. Chapter 5

He finds out online before he hears about it from her. But the worst part of that is that’s how _she_ finds out, too. Leaked to the press before the family was notified. 

They're in DC for the summer, both with internships. They’re not roommates. Mike had asked if he wanted to split a sub-lease with him, and he’d agreed, before Bells could ask him. Some idiot voice in his head telling him it was better that way -- that it wouldn’t be too much like they were _dating_ if they weren’t living together for most of the summer. 

He picks her up as she’s leaving her building, and drives her to the airport. She’s trying hard to not to cry in his passenger seat, he can tell, jaw tight and face blank. He’s never seen her close to tears before. 

“What the fuck is this music, Haywood?” she asks and means _please distract me from how worried I am about my brother_. Or so he guesses. If his brother got hit by a truck, he’d send the truck driver a fruit basket and ten grand as thanks, but Bells actually likes her family. 

“This is Townes Van Zandt, you fucking heathen,” he tells her to make her smile, and turns it up. 

“It’s not the worst thing you’ve listened to,” she admits a few stanzas later, and then later, when the song changes to someone else on his playlist: “This is some pretty hillbilly shit for a boy who went to prep school in DC.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“I’m sorry, is this a backwoods country song about a guy making sure his horse has a girlfriend?”

“No.” He rolls his eyes. And then, because chirping him will probably make her less likely to weep all over his car, and he would rather just about anything that seeing her cry, he gives her more ammunition. “It’s about a racehorse.” 

“A very pretty one. With a girlfriend.”

“No. It’s… about... Whatever.”

She squints at him, scenting blood. “Hayes. Do you like horses?”

“Sure, Teixeira, I like horses.” 

“Like… in a kinky way?”

He shoots her an incredulous look. “No! The shit you say, Teixiera! Jesus Christ. No. I just like them.”

There's a curl to the corner of her lip, a hint of smile while she chirps him. “Were you a horse girl in middle school?”

He rolls his eyes. “No, I wasn’t _a nerd_ , I just like them. My uncle has horses. I used to go there in the summer. It was nice.” 

“Huh,” she says like she’s realizing something. 

Her phone lights up and she types for a while. 

“Any news?”

“Nothing new. Papa and Dad are on their way to Montreal General. Megan got us all rooms booked at Le Meridien, next to it, and forwarded me my plane ticket. Maman’s flying all the way from Maui, her flight won’t land until tomorrow morning. Katya’s in Brussels, Mavs is in Oaxaca. Sasha’s in Sydney, they’re all coming as soon as they can get flights.” She screws her eyes tight. He squeezes her hand. 

“Hey, Haywood?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me dorky horse-girl facts about horses?”

He laughs a little. “Fuck off, Teixeira. Okay, what kind of facts?”

“How the hell would I know.”

“All right, so this horse was probably a palomino. Which is just a chestnut, with the cream dilute gene. Creme dilute genes are a single allele variation--” 

She closes her eyes, leans her head against the glass of the window. He keeps talking.


	6. Chapter 6

"How do you feel about pre-nups?” he’d asked her and she didn’t balk. Didn’t make a joke about where’s-her-ring. Just sat down on the bed next to him, and asked, “What do you need, and how much time do we have?” 

“I have three days before I need to report for Water Survival, then I’ll have another few days, before I need to report for Jumpmaster training. If we could fit it into those days, that’d be best.” 

She’d just nodded, got her phone, started typing. 

Now they’re on an early morning flight to Vegas to meet a handful lawyers. She’s in yoga pants and a hoodie, staring at her laptop screen. He’s in his only pair of civvies, and debating whether or not it’s too early to order a bloody mary. 

“Hayes, will you look at this revision real quick that Jani sent us, I don’t know about paragraph three.” 

Bells Teixeira is, somehow, after all these years, still on his side, and the reality that she is about to be on his side for the rest of his life is beginning to fully sink in. It is at the same time both terrifying and the biggest comfort he’s ever felt. 

He takes her hand, interlocks their fingers, and leans over to look at the screen with her.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Townes Van Zandt song of the same name. Thanks to Dangercupcake for beta-ing.


End file.
